The Mother

Roy left the underground station and looked around. Each time he was here, the area seemed a little more desolate and run-down. Nearly every house wall was covered with graffiti, crude gangsta rap was blaring from some boxes, African dealers were calmly selling their drugs on the street corners – for years, the police have only dared to enter this part of London in squads, if it did at all.

Roy clenched his fist around his wand, thought of Hermione and snapped at her in his mind:

So this is the world we are supposed to learn from, Mudblood? These are the achievements you want to grace us with? You and your friend Jonathan Wildfellow?

Roy was glad that Bernie hadn't noticed him passing by at the station and introduced him to his father, as had actually been his intention. For Roy, the Prime Minister was almost as much a red rag as the Minister for Magic.

They go well together, these two siblings in evil spirit, Roy thought. Both are destroying the country they are supposed to run constructively, both are abusing the trust of good-willing ordinary people, both are doing so because they prefer to trust some ideology rather than their own eyes, both will nevertheless, or precisely because of this, never have to face the music. What difference does it make whether Hermie is bewitched or not? Wildfellow isn't, and they still get along fine! And we are still trying to save her instead of killing her! Ares is right, this is all poncy what we are up to here, neither fish nor fowl! Rodolphus is right, the curse she's under is the only one whose victims are not innocent! Why the hell are we sparing her?

Roy stopped and took a breath. He already knew it: Whenever he walked through these streets, he fell into a hole of black thoughts. No wonder this neighbourhood had brought forth more than one terrorist.

Ares is wrong, he forced himself to think, Harry is right. He is our best man, he will succeed. He must.

Roy had reached the front door of the house where he had lived until he had been allowed to go to Hogwarts. An old building, run-down like practically every house here, with twenty parties. He looked at the bell plates. Only one year ago there had been still five flats with white Brits as tenants, last summer there were three, now there was only one of their names left on the bell panel: MacAllister. Roy unlocked the door and climbed up to the fifth floor without hurrying.

When he opened the flat door, he was immediately hit by the stench he hated so much: decaying food remains mixed with the odours of a toilet that hadn't been cleaned for months. The flat was a rubbish dump and the rubbish consisted mainly of empty bottles. Sticky Christmas pop was pouring out of the TV in the living room, apparently some music show was on. He entered the living room. His mother lay on the sofa, snoring. She had been drinking again. Of course she had been drinking.

Roy swept a pile of dirty laundry off the armchair, the only seat in the room, threw himself on it, reached for the remote control and changed the channel. He didn't care what was on, as long as it wasn't White Christmas or similar kitsch.

Roy didn't need a white Christmas. He hadn't expected to be picked up, not to get a present, let alone a Christmas tree – he knew his mother was investing her last penny in booze. But damn, she could at least have been awake and responsive!

He tried for minutes to wake her, in vain. The smell emanating from her revealed that she hadn't washed for weeks. She hadn't just fallen asleep in front of the TV, she must have literally drunk herself into unconsciousness. What do I care about this drunken stiff? he thought. Why doesn't she simply kick the ... In such moments he hated her and was disgusted by her – and at the same time he hated himself for thinking that way – she was still his mother.

She had drunk even while still having a job, and even after she lost her last job, she at least pulled herself together at Christmas as long he lived at home. Even then, it hadn't been idyllic postcard Christmases – the fact that Albus could conjure a Patronus with a Christmas memory was a fairy tale from another world to Roy – but at least she had cooked something tasty and they had been able to talk.

Since he was at Hogwarts, she had gone downhill. Roy tried hard not to feel guilty about it. Still, he couldn't help, and he hated her for making him feel guilty about that, too.

He had really tried to help her: Three years ago – when he was just thirteen – he had got footsore during the summer holidays and actually managed to get her a place in a rehab clinic, a church fund would have covered the costs, Father Patrick had seen to that. After the first interview, the clinic refused.

"Please understand," said the doctor, who took pity on him, "we can help an addict only if she herself really wants to change her life. But your mother basically doesn't want help, the treatment would be in vain. Our capacities are short. For every one we take in, we have to refuse another, and I simply cannot justify taking in someone we definitely cannot help, refusing another we might be able to help. I'm really sorry."

After that, Roy literally wrung out the Hogwarts library to find a spell, perhaps a potion against alcohol addiction – in vain. He had even brought himself to ask Whiteman and endure his scorn. "MacAllister," Whiteman had coolly told him, "even in our world there is no cure for alcoholism."

Roy stood up. Last year, the journey back home had been on Christmas Eve, and when he came back, he had to spend the rest of Christmas Eve and the whole of Christmas Day tidying up and cleaning the flat. This time it would be easier for him since Harry had erased the Ministry track and he could therefore do magic safely. After about an hour – he was not trained in household magic – he was done.

It was now after eleven – too late to visit old Father Patrick, who had retired to a monastery near London where he was spending his old age. He would visit him tomorrow. He needed him. During the more than ten years he had known the old priest, conversations with him had always been a kind of cool balm on his wounds; his advice was always wise. Whenever he was confused, things became clearer when he discussed them with Father Patrick.

After that, he decided, he would stay the Christmas days at his mother's and spend the rest of the holidays in the Muggle libraries. Roy lay down on the bed that he had cleaned of rubbish and that had not been made up freshly since summer. He had cleaned the sheets with a spell. My children won't grow up like this, they won't! he thought. Then he fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.